Mark Alfino teaches for the Philosophy Department at Gonzaga University. His teaching and research interests are broad, but tend to focus on two general problems: the nature of language and the nature of values. He publishes on topics in ethics and, in recent years, has been working on the topics of Happiness and Wisdom. In the last few years, he has returned to Information Ethics with a new book of collected papers on Intellectual Freedom. He has also been working in the area of philosophy of culture and takes a group of students to Benin on a short term study abroad program.

Dr. Mark Alfino has been a member of the Philosophy Faculty at Gonzaga University since 1989.

Dr. Duane Armitage

Lecturer

Gonzaga UniversityAD Box 047Spokane, WA 99258

Office LocationRB 009

Office HoursSPRING 2015T/TH 2:00-3:00*and by appointment

Education: Ph.D. The New School for Social Research (2012); M.A. Boston College (2007); B.A. University of Scranton (2005).

Areas of Interest: History of Philosophy; 20th Century Continental; Existentialism; Philosophy of Religion.

Dr. Kirk Besmer

Associate Professor of Philosophy

Gonzaga UniversityPhilosophy DeptAD Box 047Spokane, WA 99258

Phone: 6746

Office LocationRebmann 010

Office Hours

SPRING 2015T/TH 2:00-4:00* and by appointment

Kirk Besmer received his Ph.D.from the University of Notre Dame. His interests include Continental philosophy, especially Phenomenology and Existentialism, and the philosophy of technology. His most recent publication is: "Displaced Travel: On the Use of GPS in Automobiles." Techne: Research in Philosophy and Technology. Winter-Spring 2014.

Dr. Dan Bradley

Assistant Professor

502 E. Boone Ave.AD Box 047Spokane, WA 99258

Phone: (509) 313-5976

Office LocationRebmann 111

Office Hours

SPRING 2015WED 8:30-10:30 T/TH 6:30-7:30* and by appointment

Dan was awarded a PhD from the National University of Ireland in 2008, an MA in Ethics and Cultural Studies from University College Galway in 2003 and BAs in Philosophy and Biology from Gonzaga University in 1999. His research focuses on the phenomenology of religion engaging Continental thinkers (including Ricoeur, Marion, Derrida, Levinas, Heidegger, Husserl, and Kierkegaard) and the neo-Platonic mystical tradition (including Augustine, Ignatius of Loyola, and Teresa of Avila). This year he is teaching Human Nature, Ethics, Phenomenology, and Philosophical Hermeneutics.

B.A. in Philosophy, Louisiana State University, 1981 (Phi Beta Kappa); M.A. in Philosophy, Northwestern University, 1985; Ph.D. in Philosophy, Northwestern University, 1989. My teaching and research interests are in ancient Greek philosophy (especially Socratic method, Aristotelian virtue ethics, and friendship), philosophical anthropology/human nature, and Christian existentialism. Most recently, my research has focused on the historical and conceptual relationships between philosophy, Christianity, and natural science, and the implications of the Darwinian revolution in natural science for traditional concepts of human nature.

I am the director of the Gonzaga Socratic Club, which promotes philosophical inquiry into Christian doctrine, worldview, and practice. The club meets monthly during the academic year, and features presentations by scholars on topics such as the problem of evil, Christianity and science, theistic and atheistic arguments, and Christian mission in higher education. Information about the club can be found at http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/calhoun/socratic/.

Recent publications:

“Human Exceptionalism and the Imago Dei: The Tradition of Human Dignity.” Human Dignity in Bioethics: From Worldviews to the Public Square, ed. Steven C. Dilley and Nathan J. Palpant. Routledge Annals of Bioethics. Routledge 2012.

“Prospects for Human Dignity before and after Darwin.” Human Dignity in Bioethics: From Worldviews to the Public Square, ed. Steven C. Dilley and Nathan J. Palpant. Routledge Annals of Bioethics. Routledge 2012.

“From Solitary Individualism to Post-Christian Stoic Existentialism: Quests for Community, Moral Agency, and Transcendence in the Films of Clint Eastwood.” The Moral Vision of Clint Eastwood, ed. Brian Clayton and Richard McClelland. University of Kentucky 2014.

Jay Ciaffa received his BA in Philosophy and History from Cal State, Chico (1982), and his MA and PhD in Philosophy from Tulane University (1991). He regularly teaches courses in African American Philosophy and Healthcare Ethics. In the Fall of 2011, he offered a graduate seminar entitled "Nietzsche and the Ancients." He also serves as an Ethics Consultant on the Deaconess Hospital Ethics Committee. HIs publications include articles on Heidegger, African and African American Philosophy, as well as a book entitled Max Weber and the Problems of Value-free Social Science.

Education: B.A. Gonzaga University (1980), M.A. Loyola University of Chicago (1982), M.Div. from Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley (1989), S.T.L. from Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley (1991), Ph.D. Loyola University of Chicago (1999)

My teaching and research focuses on the Philosophy of Religion and the Philosophy of Technology from a Romantic, hermeneutical orientation.I am particularly interested in relationships, identity formation and religious belief and practice in the virtual age (ie on the internet and social media sites as well as in transhumanist visions of an evolving posthuman future. I am also Director of Gonzaga's Honors Program

Dr. Brian Clayton

Associate Professor

AD Box 062Spokane, WA 99258-0062

Phone: 509/313-6744
Fax: 509/313-5718

Office LocationRebmann 201

Office Hours

SPRING 2015M 1:00-3:00; TH 8:30-9:30*and by appointment

BA (Philosophy) 1978, Trinity
College (Deerfield, IL); MA
(Philosophy) 1980, University
of Notre Dame (Notre Dame,
IN); PhD. (Philosophy) 1987,
University of Notre Dame
(Notre Dame, IN).
Dr. Clayton has taught at
Gonzaga since 1986. He is
currently the Director of the Gonzaga University Faith and Reason Institute. He regularly teaches courses on Human Nature, Ethics, C.S. Lewis, Walker Percy and Faith & Reason. He has a special interest in contemporary popular film and its relationship to philosophical topics, especially virtue ethics.

Professor Henning's scholarship and teaching focus on the interconnections among ethics, metaphysics, and aesthetics. His books include The Ethics of Creativity (2005), Beyond Metaphysics? Explorations in Alfred North Whitehead's Late Thought (2010), Genesis, Evolution, and the Search for a Reasoned Faith (2011), Beyond Mechanism (2013), Being in America (2014), and Thinking With Whitehead and the American Pragmatists (forthcoming late 2014).He has a forthcoming monograph entitled Riders in the Storm: Ethics in an Age of Climate Change (forthcoming spring 2015). (See his website for complete scholarship listing and curriculum vitae.)

He teaches courses on ethics, philosophy of human nature, environmental ethics, ethics of global climate change, and Alfred North Whitehead.

Charles Lassiter (Ph.D. Fordham University, 2013) specializes in philosophy of mind and language and draws extensively on Aristotelianism, ordinary language philosophy, and empirical findings in the cognitive sciences. He teaches courses in ethics, symbolic logic, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and theory of knowledge. He is also the administrator of the department's logic requirement for the graduate program. For more information (including an up-to-date CV), please visit his website.

Danielle A. Layne

Assistant Professor in Philosophy

AD Box 47

Phone: 4249

Office LocationRB 112

Office HoursSPRING 2015T/TH 10:00-12:00*and by appointment

Danielle A. Layne received her BA from Loyola University New Orleans and her MA and PhD from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Her teaching and research interests are within the domains of ancient philosophy, particularly Plato, the Platonic tradition and Hellenistic Philosophy. Her recent publications concentrate on the image of Socrates in Neoplatonism as well as the efficacy and nature of prayer in late antiquity.

Dr. Quanhua Liu

Associate Professor of Philosophy

502 E. Boone Ave.AD Box 047Spokane, WA 99258

Phone: (509)313-3950

Office LocationRebmann House 202

Office HoursSPRING 2015T/TH 8:00-10:30*and by appointment

Quanhua Liu received Ph.D. in philosophy from Duke University (1994), MA and BA in philosophy from Peking (Beijing) University (1985 and 1982 respectively). His current research interests lie in Chinese philosophy, comparative philosophy, and modern and contemporary philosophy.

My BA is in Political Science from The George Washington University (1995); my MA is in Philosophy from Colorado State University (1998) and my PhD is in Philosophy from The University of Florida (2004). My areas of interest are Normative and Applied Ethics, particularly Business Ethics and Feminist Ethics. I am also interested in International Developmental Ethics, Ethics and Food, and Ethics and the Professions.

Graduate Seminar taught Fall 2008: Theories of Justice

Dr. Wayne P. Pomerleau

Professor of Philosophy and The Robert K. and Ann J. Powers Chair of the Humanities

Areas of Expertise: History of Modern Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, and Philosophy of Human Nature

Published Books: Twelve Great Philosophers: A Historical Introduction to Human Nature and Western Philosophies of Religion: Great Religious Epistemologies from Augustine to Hick

Dr. Erik Schmidt

Associate Professor of Philosophy

Gonzaga UniversityPhilosophy DepartmentAD Box 048Spokane, WA 99258

Phone: (509) 313 - 5975

Office LocationRebmann 205

Office Hours

SPRING 2015T/TH 11:00-12:00M/W 2:40-3:40*and by appointment

BA (Philosophy) 1993, Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL); PhD (Philosophy) 2003, Syracuse University (Syracuse, NY). Dr. Schmidt has taught at Gonzaga since 2003. His current research addresses the intersection of moral psychology and practical reason and he is also working on issues related to the philosophy of art.

Professor Tkacz specializes in the history of medieval philosophy and the philosophy of nature. Much of his research is devoted to recovering the contributions of the thirteenth-century thinker Albertus Magnus to the development of scientific method and the metaphysical foundations of empirical science. Professor Tkacz also serves as President of the Society for Thomistic Natural Philosophy.

With Judy Meyer, RN, PhD. “The Story of the POLST form: How a Grassroots Effort Can Make a Difference in End-of-Life Care.” Delaware Nurses Association Newsletter. March, 2005.

With Myron Bloom, MD. An Ethics Primer for the HolyFamilyHospital Ethics Committee, Spokane, WA., 2004.A twenty-five page introduction to ethics and the work of the ethics committee for use by new members.

Professor Rukavina came to Gonzaga in 1958 and was promoted to Professor of Philosophy in 1970. He was named Professor Emeritus of Philosophy in 1999. The Department's annual lecture series is named in his honor.